and the load doesn't weigh me down at all
by varicose
Summary: Sometimes you just want something white and clean, but all that you get is battered knuckles, dirty palms, nicotine yellow nails, and blood on your hands always.


_Disclaimer: Dont own, don't sue. _

"You kill her?"

"What?"

Mandy's head is in her ass. She's not really paying attention to show, even though it's that AMC zombie shit, and it's her favorite.

"The bitch from school," he says slower. "With the fucking car, you kill her?"

She shrugs.

Mickey shrugs.

He uncaps the whiskey and sips, swallows, sips, and then lets the liquor burn in his mouth until his eyes water. He wonders who it was that Mandy hit, and if the bitch is dead, and what she did to piss Mandy off in the first place.

He wasn't kidding when he said, "You don't know my sister til' you've fought my sister". Once, when they were 12 or some shit, they got in a brawl in the kitchen. He hit her head against an open cabinet door really hard and she screamed, but it wasn't a hurt kind of scream, it was something full of fucking anger. He thought his kid sister would do what kid sisters do, and just pull on his hair or scratch him, go screaming to daddy, but _goddamn it_ if she didn't get up from under him and take a fucking butcher knife to his chest. A 12 year old girl had the tip of a knife pressing into him and he saw in her eyes that she was serious as a heart attack, tears pouring, chest huffing and puffing. She would have fucking stabbed him- he's sure of that- if he hadn't started apologizing. He almost pissed his pants.

She tries to fight her own battles most of the time, but Mandy's lazy, and she used to sick Mickey and Nicky on neighborhood boys that deserved it, just like she did with Gallag-

He takes a big fucking drink.

Anyway, he's never more than mildly surprised when someone turns up in the hospital cause of her.

Even so, he always hopes she's not a dumbass about it. Doesn't want her to end up in juvie. Doesn't want her getting her hands on a gun anytime soon, either.

He gets up off the couch to find some microwavable crap, cause he figures he should have something in his gut if he's gonna keep drinking, which he fully plans to.

* * *

Lip beat up Gerry Handwell in grade four because he made fun of Ian's freckles relentlessly. And it's not like Ian came crying to Lip about it or anything, but he did come home crying when Gerry Handwell tried to connect all his freckles with a sharpie like a constellation and everyone laughed. He wouldn't tell anyone but FIona what happened. But Lip listened in on their conversation and then Lip went to the park, and he found Gerry Handwell and beat the snot out of him til there was actual blood coming out of the kid's nose. Lip had never really fucked anyone up before that.

He kicked the shit out of Andrew Rossi when they were thirteen because he tripped Ian in the hall. He was suspended for a week and a half. Ian probably could have taken care of it himself at that age, but it was the principle of the thing; you don't fuck with a guy's brother right in front of him.

He tries to ask what's wrong when the peas have gone warm under Ian's cheek and the bruises are starting to go purple.

Ian was weird all day and now this.

He hears Ian swallow something thick. He shakes his head.

"Nothing."

"Bullshit."

"Fuck off."

Ian rolls over to his side to face the wall. Lip sighs quietly, letting his legs dangle off the top bunk. He lights a cigarette after a minute.

It's not that surprising to see Ian with a fucked up face because, hell, he gets more bruises than Lip on a good day. The only thing that really freaks Lip out is that he doesn't know why Ian's crying. It's even stranger that he doesn't make an attempt to cover it up. Lip can see the way his shoulders are shuddering and how he keeps shaking his head as if he wants to say the word_ no_ over and over again.

After a while, Debbie sends Liam in for bedtime. He rubs his eyes and half-crawls around the room looking for shit to put in his mouth. Lip picks him up, sniffs his diaper to make sure he's good, and he sets him down on Ian's bed. He chatters away, saying variations of their names and other random toddler noises.

"Eeeeann," Liam sings. Ian doesn't acknowledge either of them.

Lip leaves the room to find Liam's pajamas in the laundry mountain downstairs. The lights have been shut off in the kitchen, all the kids have gone to bed. Lip plans on staying with Ian tonight because he's worried, but it's not the kind of worry that would warrant Fiona's help. He told Carl to crash in his room. He's probably riffling through Lip's porn collection right now.

When Lip goes back upstairs, Ian is sitting up with Liam in his lap. Liam keeps trying to touch his face, but he winces and pulls away, hugging Liam around the middle.

"Here," Lip says, throwing Ian the PJ's.

Ian sniffles. He changes Liam quickly, who squirms and starts getting fussy about bed.

And they all just freeze there for a few long moments, even Liam, all of them tired, all of them needing to sleep.

"Who fucked up your face?" Lip asks

Ian doesn't say anything so Lip uses the power of deduction.

"ROTC?"

Nothing. Lip didn't think so. He registers the extra puffiness in Ian's eyelids and tries to remember the last time he himself cried. It was thanksgiving night. After everything, Lip cried his fucking eyes out in some pissing alley because everyone had been right about Karen all along and he was pissed that he never believed them.

So Lip figures it's a something to do with love and heartbreak and all that shit.

This has to be about a guy, then. Lip doesnt know if he's ever saying the right things to Ian about dating and fucking because...well, they're not exactly fucking the same kind of people, are they?

He doesn't understand Ian's thing for older guys, or the seemingly unavailable ones. Like Mandy's brother, who Lip wonders if Ian's still even fucking.

Mickey Milkovich who's been batting for the other team this whole time. The thought still seems hard to believe.

It kind of clicks when Lip thinks back to what Ian's told him about Mickey, how he threw himself into juvie just because Frank caught them.

It all kind of clicks.

"Mickey?" Lip asks, but now he's sure of it. He can picture Mickey Milkovich with his tattooed knuckles slamming into Ian's face. Something familiar shakes down through him to his fingertips. He clenches his fists.

"You know he's getting married?" Ian says. His voice is all nasally- from crying or from a busted nose, Lip doesn't know.

"He did that to you?" Lip points to his face.

Ian laughs sadly. He sniffles.

"Maybe I deserved it."

Ian tells Lip how Terry Milkovich pointed a gun at him for the second time in his young life; how Mickey's face had more blood on it than flesh by the time Terry was done with him; how the hooker came and Mickey wouldn't look at him in the eye, or speak to him, or fucking acknowledge Ian's existence after that. He tells him like it's some kind of confession, and his voice breaks when he says that Mickey kicked his teeth in for calling him what he was.

Lip doesn't know how he's missed all this.

He doesn't know how it's possible for Ian to actually love someone like Mickey Milkovich.

But when Ian limps over to Liam's crib and places him in it, he tells Lip to turn off the light, that he just wants to sleep. Lip thinks that Ian might want to sleep forever like Monica always did. Nights and days and nights and days in bed.

Lip goes to sleep in the top bunk when Liam finally shuts up.

His nerves are tense, and his jaw clenched, and his fists tight.

Tomorrow, he's going to find some way to corner Mandy's brother. He thinks about how to do it, how to make sure that he won't get shot.

Even if Mickey pulls a gun on him, which is likely, he's going to get a hit in.

Because that's just what brothers do.

* * *

Mickey decides that if Mandy gets caught, he'll take the fall for it.

It's just what brothers do.

He actually hopes the cops trace it back to his house so that he can fess up, get tried as an adult, and thrown in the joint for his first- of most likely many- long prison sentences.

It's a good out. He wouldn't have to marry her, or see her for another 10 years at least.

He laughs to himself because it's funny that his best hiding place is prison. No matter what kind of shit goes down, he's always got prison.

Mickey is hungover like nothing else. His limbs are like jelly, mouth pasty and sour, head pounding whenever he shifts his eyes so he keeps them looking straight ahead. He's just gotta get to the store. It's a fifteen minute walk to the one near the bus terminal. He'd go to the Kash-and-Grab...but fuck that.

Mickey's pretty sure he's about two drinks away from full blown alcoholism.

He tried rock once, when his brothers had a bit at someone's party, in some backyard, somewhere around this place. It got him so high that he spazzed out and fell asleep. When he woke up in the morning, the walk home was worse than any walk of shame cause he couldn't quit picturing his mother's face, his mother's lips wrapped and puckered around that brown pipe she loved, sucking down her special smoke like she was kissing it, the way she never kissed him or any of her kids. His mother doesn't mean shit when it comes down to it, but he's not going out like that, no fucking way. He'll sell crank cause it's lucrative but he won't smoke it.

Only now he's thinking about dipping into his stash a little bit. Fuck his dead mom, and fuck all the crack whores, especially the one with his kid in her gut. He would just get high enough to go to sleep again. He thinks about it and thinks about it all the way to the store.

When he gets to the store, he's ready for a drink, heads straight for the liquor stock before the door can close behind him. The cheapest whiskey is on sale. His hand closes around the neck of it and he just wants to crack it open right now to shut up this screaming head, and that's when he sees him.

Straight ahead, by the candy bars at the counter.

Red hair and a tight shirt stretching across his shoulders, hand slipping into a pocket to pull out some bills.

Mickey's stomach lurches and he almost pukes in his mouth. He almost hits the ground to hide. He wishes he was in prison or anywhere, fucking ANYWHERE right now and fuck, what is he gonna do, what is he gonna do, what is he gonna do?

But Gallagher turns and it's not him.

It's not him at all, just some ginger fucker with a pack of Camels.

When he's gone, Mickey lets go of the bottle. He barks at the cashier,

"You got a bathroom in this shithole?"

It's in the back, past the fridge, so he storms there ignoring his head. He almost doesn't make it to the toilet in time to throw up everything, acid and crappy food from last night, and then he retches and retches until his stomach muscles cramp and his eyes feel like they're going to pop out of his skull.

After, he washes his hands at the sink. He hits the button on the dispensary again and again, but nothing comes out. No fucking soap. He wants to wash his hands. Living in this shit hole, sometimes you just want something white and clean, but all that you get is battered knuckles, dirty palms, nicotine yellow nails, and blood on your hands always. He punches the wall hard enough that the tile cracks.

He doesn't end up buying any booze.

He just tries to go home.

He is somewhere under the El when the electricity comes out of nowhere, the sting in his back. He's been tasered before, so he registers that it's happening and he hits the ground at once. There's too much inside him, pain and movement in his bones and fucking blood making him vibrate on the ground. He pisses himself, he thinks.  
It stops after a second where he twitches, but then there's hands on his waist, lifting up his shirt and feeling around. Hands that are looking for the gun he didn't bring with him.

He cracks an eye, sees someone familiar. He sees the fist get closer and closer to his face.

It's all so disorienting, he hardly knows where the pain of the kick to his ribs starts and the shock of the blow to his jaw ends.

"F-fuck," he stutters out.

Another kick. It makes him curl in on himself protectively.

"You remember this, right?" a voice says.

Something drops on him. It's a person, too heavy on his probably broken ribs. He pins down Mickey's arms and rips his face up so that Mickey is looking up at whoever has jumped him.

It's Lip and his weird blue eyes. He looks fucking vicious. Mickey knows why he's here.

"You remember how you don't FUCK WITH SOMEONE'S FAMILY." He screams it, throttles Mickey, hits his head off the ground.

He should fight back.

He's a Milkovich, people don't just fucking jump you under the El.

The desire to kill, to hurt- it's so weak that it might not be there at all. He tips his head back for the next blow and takes it.

Lip closes his hands around Mickey's throat.

This is the most painful part, when he can't breathe, when his windpipe is buried under all that rage, and when the black spots start to form in the corner of his vision. He closes his eyes. He feels sorry, he even thinks the words, I'm fucking sorry, because this is what he gets. It still doesn't hurt as much other things do, the other things that he thinks- about Ian Gallagher and his dad. The pressure on his neck increases enough that he can't breathe at all, and it feels like he'll never be able to breathe again.

Lip knows everything, Firecrotch would have told him. That's why Lip is here, killing him, because you kill for your family and you die for them, and you go to prison for them. Mickey has wanted to die for a few months now. He's getting his wish because soon he can't even feel the hands squeezing him. He goes numb.

And he's about to pass out when he thinks,

_I love you and I'm gay._

But the pressure around his neck is gone as soon as it came.

He coughs for air and coughs and shudders and stretches his fucked up neck until it feels like a neck again, and the weight is off his chest finally. He can hear his throat straining against the air.

Lip stands over him with the black thing that must be the taser. Mickey hears him mutter some kind of threat that he doesn't pay attention to. He doesn't even think about the pain because it's all that fucking exists right now.

And the footsteps recede.

And he's going to live, after all. It's fucking weird and terrible how the thought makes him sad.

It always comes down to this for Mickey. Death or prison?

There's gotta be something else. There's gotta be.


End file.
